


The Death and the Maiden

by gyromitra



Series: The Court of the Demon King [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Fantasy, M/M, One-shot (as if), Word salad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 19:59:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11562291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gyromitra/pseuds/gyromitra
Summary: Literal Word Salad. A Thing That Waits and Listens makes a promise.





	The Death and the Maiden

The first kiss they share happens in a field of golden wheat. The merciless sun bears down on them and Jack has him pierced from arm to side, right through his heart, both with his sword and his blue eyes. Gabriel, not yet a king then – merely a prince – but still a god of death.

The kiss tastes of iron, smoke, and war.

When the battlefield moves closer they let go of each other.

*

He leads an army. He is triumphant in his endeavors. He still dreams of golden wheat swaying in a gentle wind under a merciless sun.

They bring him courtesans. None has eyes like an autumn sky. He sends them away.

*

Where the Mother Heaven and Father Earth met at the beginnings of time a small lagoon rests, almost cut off from the endless life-giving seas. Jack leads him there and asks him to wait, while he himself jumps into the water. Gabriel humors him.

The young Moon god comes up and breaks the surface, a single conch held in his triumphant grasp. He strides, water splashing around, and demon prince thinks he could even want him now with clothes wet and clinging to his skin, hair astride.

In the conch, he hears a melancholic song. Jack throws it away and under the pale Moon, they share their second kiss.

*

War breaks out, a cycle of peace struck down. Mother of Dragons wakes from her slumber and there is none to take up a mantle of her champion.

*

Gabriel wanders the abandoned battlegrounds. Not because he is Death, as all think, but because he searches for a glint of piercing blue or glimmering gold. When he finds none he never knows if he is comforted or saddened.

*

The third kiss happens in a realm profane while Jack lies sprawled in his bed with limbs askew on soft furs. It is messy, long and fulfilling.

“My life is yours,” the Moon god whispers into his ear with a stilted gasp.

“My life is yours,” Gabriel replies in a moment of passion.

And just like that, young fools, they are bound till the end of time. It lasts about the next full Moon until the trade is brokered and the hostage returned to a realm divine.

*

The Water god offers that even as sullied as the young Moon god is now, he will still take him.

Jack all but spits at him, snarling.

“What makes you think I would take you?”

The young Moon god is punished for his infractions.

*

The old demon king laughs at him, at how he frets and restless walks the halls.

“An irrational deed, a fancy of Death. It will mold you into what you have to be,” god of Hells clicks his maws, his tongues writhing in ruthless mirth.

Moons pass and there are no news from a realm divine.

*

Sun comes and asks for an audience.

“There was a Prophecy.” She looks not to the old demon king, but to Death. “The Moon moves Waters no more, yet it is plunged into blood red Sea. Star falls to the earth and Death follows among men. An Old God dies and Mother of Dragons claims as hers.”

She came to assert Mother of Dragons for herself, to force the Prophecy. He will not let her. His claws crush Sun’s heart and he allows her seconds to be triumphant.

“What have you done to him?” She doesn’t answer, a moment of glory changed into fear, and then Death consumes her.

His father approves.

*

Mother of Dragons stirs and walks, a shadow of what existed before time. All tremble in her wake.

“He is mine, the cursed one,” she declares, her claw plucking a soul from Death’s embrace.

Gabriel smiles, falling beyond the Walls, for at his court he sees Moon bloodied and satiated, and over his sleep the demon king watches.

*

They crash and shatter, pieces scattered and forgotten, the Death and the Maiden, forever locked in duality.

*

And the beginning is made by a boy of seven springs of age while he stands atop a hill, a wooden sword raised high.

“Catch me if you can!” He dares the wind.

“I can,” comes a breezy answer from a Thing That Waits and Listens. But there are worse things on this earth than a Thing That Waits and Listens, and they too call.

“We can!”


End file.
